Lecompton ? There’s a little more elbow room this year at Lecompton Elementary School.

The school’s 140 students and its staff are enjoying a new gym, two kindergarten classrooms and health and staff rooms thanks to a $1.1 million renovation and expansion project.

“That made it possible for the kindergarten to have the classrooms that meet their needs and freed up room for a computer lab,” Principal Sharon Keagy said.

The additions were celebrated during a dedication ceremony Tuesday night at the school, where a three-panel art mural depicting the history of Lecompton and its schools was unveiled.

The mural was the product of Bob and Carey Treanor, rural Lecompton residents who also own and operate Tall Grass Studios. It consists of three panels, each 7 feet tall and about 3 feet wide. The third panel culminates at the bottom with a panoramic picture of the addition to the elementary school.

Bob Treanor, of Tall Grass Studios, left, works on setting some historical panels Tuesday at Lecompton Elementary School with the help of counselor Julie Shaw and second-grade student Abby Folks. The panels depict a history of schools in the Lecompton area since the mid-1800s

The panels show one-room stone schoolhouses that were in the area in the 1800s as well as later schools in the early decades of the 20th century.

“It’s to honor and display all these years of schools in the area that have come to be this cool little school in Lecompton,” Bob Treanor said.

The school addition also means the lunch and breakfast room no longer has to serve as a gym and physical education class space, Keagy said.

The elementary school addition was one aspect of an overall expansion and renovation project in the Perry-Lecompton school district made possible with the 2004 passage by voters of a $9.9 million bond issue. Lecompton is about 10 miles northwest of Lawrence.

A new Perry-Lecompton Middle School was added to the northwest corner of the high school in Perry, and a gym for competition was added to the southwest corner. There was a little bit of remodeling in the high school, district Supt. Steve Johnston said.

“The middle school is open and going,” Johnston said. “The gymnasium is scheduled to be open in mid-September.”